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I sat with my kids during breakfast and we read a kids' daily devotional. Today's reading was all about worry and how it's a form of unbelief....unbelief that God is with us, cares about us personally, and is able to handle our problems. The reading encouraged us to express our worries to the Lord so He can carry them for us. It seemed logical to ask my kids what they worry about.

"friends"
"getting good grades"
"what people think of me"
"tornadoes"
"puking on the bus ride for my field trip today" (haha!)

But then Thomas shared his little heart, and I almost cried!

"Mom, I worry about losing you and Daddy. I'm afraid you'll get sick and die. I'm afraid someone will hurt or kill you. I'm worried that maybe you and Daddy won't want to be married anymore and one of you will marry someone else - that happened to a lot of people in my class."

Oh....felt like a gut punch! I had no idea that my rambunctious, loud, silly little baby boy was carrying such a heavy burden!

I reassured him to the best of my ability...but ultimately...he will lose us. Hopefully not for a very very long time.....but we will die. I can't really tell him that we'll be here for him forever if we won't!

What to do but encourage him to turn his eyes to Jesus? Jesus will never leave him. As we sat with waffles and juice before us....we prayed. We prayed for safety, for Luke's and my marriage, families that have been broken, friendships, bus rides....all of it. We imagined putting all of our worries in a big box, closing the lid, and handing it to Jesus to take care of for us.

Ultimately though, my prayer is not to avoid the inevitable of death and loss.....instead, I pray that my kids all know and trust the Lord so they can get through the hard stuff with peace....joy, even. I pray that they know Him and how much He loves them.....that they grow to only care about what HE thinks of them.

I'm just their earthy parent - boy, I feel small this morning - I can't protect and guide them their entire lives. I'll do my best, of course....but I'll screw up, miss things, give bad advice, and eventually have to leave them.

Feeling overwhelmingly thankful this morning for Jesus....who is ready and able to fill the God-shaped hole in my babies like only He can.

I was raised to know God and the story of this Jesus who came to save.

I was "saved" as a young child of about 9 years old, one night after praying "....if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take..." After uttering those words, I felt that still small voice speak to me and say, "Do you? Do you want to be mine?" I whispered back a heartfelt, "yes"....and He moved into my heart that quiet night in Iowa as I lay under the covers of my little yellow Holly Hobby blanket. I proceeded to live a mostly fruitless life, but I tried really hard to be "good".

Many years later in 1998, I began a painful and beautiful journey. It felt like I was being bombarded by so many different "truths"....how could I really know what IS true? If there is just one God, surely there must be one standard of truth....God's Truth. I spoke to a Catholic priest, a Lutheran minister, my parents, a Mormon from work, and an Evangelical Christian friend. At one point or another during our conversations, all these different people mentioned one book at least once...the Bible.

How could this be? The Bible was just a book of stories....hard to understand, seemingly contradictory....and the few pieces I could understand didn't make me like or trust God very much!

So I did what any self-respecting intelligent person would do....I se out to prove that the Bible couldn't be true. That way, I could simply live my OWN "truth" and all would be settled.

I read. I gathered piles of info (thank you, internet). I talked. I studied. This went on for YEARS. Five years. I had reams of documents printed up. I compared the Jewish holy book to our modern Bible....to the Catholic Bible....to the Mormon books....

To my utter frustration, I was not finding much success in disproving the Bible. But I still wasn't really ready to accept it at TRUTH. After all, it was so HARD to read....confusing...frustrating....made me angry every time I tried to read it!

And then one day, that still small voice spoke to me again. Only it wasn't quite so still and small. I envisioned myself at a crossroads. I was perfectly free to choose either path I wanted, but those paths were headed in opposite directions....there was no "medium" or "sort of" middle road. And that voice said, "Daiquiri, you know enough. It's time to choose." It was gentle, but it was firm.

"God, I don't understand you. I don't understand this book of yours. The pieces of that book that I do understand, make me feel like you're not very nice. But I know this...there is a God, and I am not that God. YOU are God. I am not. I don't know who you are or what you want with me, but I want to be yours. I want to know you. I want my life to have purpose and meaning. Help me understand the Bible if that's how you want me to know you. I give up. From this point forward, I will stop fighting and just be all yours. I'm scared of you and what you have for my life. You, God....I want you to be my Lord."

There were no fireworks or thunderbolts. Just an ocean of peace in my heart. And love.... oh, God... it's as if God is a vast OCEAN of love, and He took one minuscule *drop* of His love and put it in my heart and mind. For weeks, I was nearly crushed by the enormity of that one small drop of God-love in my heart. I spend a lot of time praying and crying....in a good way....just trying to build up the muscle required to carry that little drop!

Needless to say, I've never been the same. And thank God for that!

My first Easter after being "born again" (I can't think of a better way to describe it) was OVERWHELMING.....oh, this Jesus of mine! What he did for me! How much he loves me! At the time, we were going to a big Christian church in Boise, Idaho (Calvary Chapel Boise), and they held their Easter service in the BSU Pavilion. There was this little start-up artist who came to sing for us.....he had a single guitar, and his friend sat on a beat-box. Those two people, those two instruments.....and man, I could NOT stop the tears. The joy and love in my heart....I felt physically incapable of containing it all!

That little artist was Phil Wickham....if you listen to Christian radio these days, you know that God has done amazing things in his music career! :-)

Anyway....this whole post was intended to be a, "hey, check out this song....this is the guy who led worship my first Easter as a born-again Christian"....but I guess a little background was necessary ;-)

This is one of my favorite songs to this day....Divine Romance, indeed. Your heart will never be the same if you lay it down at His feet.

Ok, Lord. I choose you. I'm sorry, really I am. I like you a whole lot - why is it always so hard for me to choose you?

The feathery pages slide open to the Psalms, and I read aloud. I like filling my house with His Word. I feel safer with His living Words vibrating the walls, if only with my small voice. It's my way of saying, "Get away, Enemy. You have no place here. This home, this heart, this mind is filled with The Son."

My family is at school and work, so I am free. I grab the speaker that makes the big chest vibrating sound, and crank it up. Worship music fills the room....fills my heart....I choose you this morning, Lord.

It's a frigid winter morning, and I've fought a chill since shivering my way out of my warm covers. As the music plays, the sun finally blazes through the morning haze and through my back window. It feels amazing and warm and consuming. It warms the right side of my body, the side facing the window....but I want it on my face. I scoot my chair a bit closer to the window, and move around until the sun shines past the edge of my house and onto my face. There....this is my warm place...right here with the sun on my face.

And then it hits me....the physical position required for me to get the sun on my face was a strange one...I had to sort of hunch down, bow my head, and turn my head toward the window. It's the only way the sun could reach around the gutter on the outside of my house to find me.

I had to bow my head.

I've often wondered at the fact that we call that big bright thing in our sky "sun". Is it coincidence? If so, it's a mighty one!

Our entire being on this planet circles that sun.
The sun gives us heat and energy.
No single thing could live without it's rays.
Even when we can't see it, not a person on earth doubts that it's still there.
It is our center, our source of energy and sustenance, our light.

Our light.

Our light that must sometimes reach around the dark edges to find my face. Our light that drives out the chill and darkness just by being present.

And today....the light that required me to bow my head.

No - I don't believe in coincidence. I can't help but think of how all of this physical creation reflects something about God.

Sometimes it's hard to see because of the filth....the brokenness...the litter....the death....it can be hard to see God in creation unless you're really looking for it. But not when it comes to the sun. Could there be a more pure unadulterated piece of creation? It's maybe the one piece of creation that wasn't damaged by the Fall...the sun...another coincidence? Ha!

Today I will seek another Light....The Son.

My entire being revolves around Him.
He is my life's force and energy.
Without Him, I am gone. He holds me together with a thought.
Even when I can't see or feel Him, He is there. He never leaves me.
He is my center.
My sustenance.
My light.

I choose you, Lord. I bow my head and long for your light on my face. Meet me here, Father and be my everything.

"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." Romans 1:20Read more...

I've been thinking a lot about fear and doubt lately. It seems that it's a common stumbling block….I've talked about it a lot lately with people in business and in my personal life. The trend seems to be like this:

- a seed of an exciting idea starts to take hold- a persons steps forward in faith and pursues it- it's scary

- that person starts to think that their fear and doubt is from God- thinking the fear is a message from God, the person is completely sidetracked or stopped all together from pursuing the good thing they set out after. They start thinking "maybe God doesn't want me here, and that's why I'm afraid". Or they think, "Oh no, God is preparing me for something terrible!"My personal "trick" for fighting through the fear (not around it or running the other direction….STRAIGHT THROUGH) is to have a verse or two that I repeat to myself until it becomes my new truth. I've been known to go on a run and say "I can do all things through Christ" for the entire 2.5 miles

But here's the thing….GOD DOES NOT LEAD US WITH FEAR. God leads with peace and courage and hope and love. Does debilitating fear sound like something from a loving Father? Does it make sense for our God to lead us with fear after He's told us, "I have a plan for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future." ?

NO….this is precisely why we must focus on the truth of the Word…right there in black and white….vs our feelings, which are soft and squishy and change with every passing moment.

In fact 1 John 4:18 tells us "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment."

God is love. God casts OUT fear.

Another good one to meditate on is "He who is in me is greater….greater than the enemy….greater than my fears….greater than my doubt."

Or, before I pick up the phone to talk to someone who feels scary to me, I say "I trust you, Lord."

I can do all things

My God is always with me

My God is greater than ALL

I trust you, Lord

PS. This is a continuous battle. There are days when I feel crushed beneath the fear and doubt and ugliness. In fact, I sit here right NOW feeling vulnerable and afraid and nervous about hitting that 'post' button! So here we go….stepping out in faith and hope...

Praying this for my team today. I’m so thankful that we have a Living God who sees us, hears us, and cares for us. Sometimes the very best and most loving answer to our prayerful petitions is a big fat “NO”….but at the end of the day, if we know that God is FOR us and wants only the very best for us, I love hearing ‘no’ from Him!

Wait….”no” is a good thing? Well, think about it. I see something I want. I want it badly enough that it makes my chest ache a little bit thinking about it. I’m emotional enough to pray for God to intervene on my behalf. But He says “no”. The question we ask now is “why?”, right? And here’s where it gets really interesting….. CONTINUE READING